Virginia Tech & Citizen Journalism

The coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings surely indicate the importance of citizen journalism and the Web. Tonight's network newcasts (especially ABC World News) featured eyewitness accounts culled from student cell phones videos, Facebook blog reports and even a college citizen journalism site (the Blacksburg Report). The questions raised by citizen/ student journalists themselves are shaping the coverage. NowPublic.com, Newsvine, Topix and other citizen journalism sites are seeing a huge number of views on info related to the shootings. Hopefully, this combination of citizen (or student) journalism and professional newsgatherers will shed light on this tragedy.